A Long Time Coming
by slyprentice
Summary: The first touch is like a flare of recognition. Bucky-centric mature one-shot.


**Title**: A Long Time Coming  
**Author**: Prentice (slyprentice)  
**Category**: Captain America, MCU  
**Genre**: Angst, Hurt/Comfort  
**Ship**: Bucky…and Bucky's hand, really. Good combo. :)  
**Overall Rating**: PG-13  
**Warnings: References to past dubious consent issues. **  
**Author's Note**: _This whole one-shot is based on a throwaway conversation I had with a friend about Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier and how Hydra likely controlled every single aspect of his life up to and including how he related to himself. I couldn't stop thinking about it and decided to write something post-TWS that was all about self-comfort. _

**Summary**: The first touch is like a flare of recognition.

* * *

The first touch is like a flare of recognition. A long-lost buzz that crawls its way up his spine and settles somewhere inside his skin; a familiar warmth spreading low and slow in his belly. The touch – _his_ touch – is teasing, somehow, and so good he can only huff out of small exhalation of noise and breath, fingers cool against his overheated flesh.

It's been – a long time.

Longer, even, than he's entirely willing to admit, even to himself, and he can feel that cold tinge of panic somewhere in the back of his throat, tightening his airway, at the thought that he is doing this. That he is – _touching_ – himself like this. Without permission. Without regard.

They haven't used him for body work in years, after all; haven't asked him to – _perform_ – since that one time in Prague when one of the wet works team had made the mistake of coming too close. He doesn't remember much of what he did – maintenance, they say – _said_ – is important and it blurs the edges of his memories; fractures them into tiny parts that blow away like dust in the wind – but whatever it was, it had been enough.

_You are a weapon_, he thinks as he backs himself towards the wall, shirt an itchy nuisance that he discards onto the floor. _You are a tool – a machine made of flesh and bone and metal. Of blood and guts and – _

He doesn't finish the thought. Doesn't finish any of his thoughts. Not anymore. They are – _instructive_; no, they are – _destructive_. No again. They are – _confusing_.

_I am lost_, he thinks – tries to say, because it is true and the taste of the words are strange on his tongue, but he's not lost really. Not anymore. He's finally found himself, hasn't he, in the bright blue eyes that stare at him from the other side of – everything.

Even so, though, even _so_, his fingers tighten, a hot liquid spike of sensation wriggling in his gut like an overeager puppy and he stutters a breath out, eyelids fluttering. It's – this is good. Really good, perfect almost.

_I am lost_, he thinks again, but doesn't say, words echoing inside his own mind. The loose denim of his jeans – hand-me-downs lifted from a dirty clothes line somewhere outside the city – is rough against his knuckles, scraping over old cuts that haven't quite healed. _And I am bleeding. But I will – _

Fingers rough, he pushes his jeans lower and drags fingertips against coarse hair and tender skin. They hang on his hips, these jeans that are not his jeans, and remind him of something long forgotten. Of a body, not his own, that hangs with clothes too big and a heart too large and he grasps onto that thought, that image, and lets it flow over him.

_I am_, he thinks, flesh fevered and throat tight. Hand and fingers working himself, he doesn't know how to finish that thought. Not anymore – not now – with pleasure that is – old yet new, familiar yet foreign –rippling through him like a stone has been skipped across the glassy surface of his own – _programming – _consciousness and he is lost to it – _lost _– like he is drowning – like he is _falling_ – like he is –

Back arching, a startled stuttered gasp leaves his lips, the hot press of heat and liquid and his own hand curling tighter around his erection , caressing out the last few seconds of pleasure – pleasure – so much pleasure – and it's all his now, isn't it – no one else's - it's his – _his_ – and he can do what he wants with it.

Slumping back against the wall, he – _who is he, anyway?_ – trembles through the aftershocks, muzzy and dazed and maybe just a little surprised because – because he touched himself. For the first time, in this new body he's in, this new life, where he is not a weapon or a tool or the sharpened edge of a knife blade or the curving swoop of a trigger ready to be pulled. And he enjoys it.

Without permission. Without restraint. Without fear of reprisal or the painful bite of maintenance – _you have your orders, soldier _– and he is – he will be –

_Who? _He thinks, wonders, questions, hopes, as his fingers slide gently once more against himself, a sloppy touch that eases something inside of him. _Who will I be?_

He doesn't know. Doesn't care. Not right now. But one day –

_I can be anyone I want to be. Anyone at all. Even James Buchanan Barnes. _

**END**


End file.
